In this communication age, content providers are increasingly investigating ways in which to provide more content to users as well as interfacing with users.
Communication satellites have become commonplace for use in many types of communication services, e.g., data transfer, voice communications, television spot beam coverage, and other data transfer applications. As such, satellites transmit and receive large amounts of signals used in either a “bent pipe” or “spot array” configuration to transmit signals to desired geographic locations on the earth.
Because the frequency resources are scarce for over-the-air transmission, various encoding schemes are used to provide a greater number of communication signals within an allocated communication band. Such encoding schemes include code division multiple access (CDMA), time division multiple access (TDMA), frequency division multiple access (FDMA), or combination of these schemes. Further, to prevent interference the schemes may operate at various frequencies.
CDMA systems are commonly used in mobile applications. In the mobile applications a plurality of base stations are positioned to provide coverage for a cell of a service area. Each of the base stations has a plurality of orthogonal codes that are used in each base station. The same group of orthogonal codes are reused in a cell covered by another base station a predetermined distance away. No central code management resource is needed because the base station with the same orthogonal codes is located sufficient distance so that interference does not occur. As the mobile user travels throughout the service area, frequency switching must occur often as the user travels into the range of another base station. Frequency switching may cause inconvenience such as discontinuity during switching time. Also, the additional signaling required for frequency switching adds to higher overhead in the system.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a CDMA management scheme that reduces the amount of switching of users between the various orthogonal codes.